HEC: Updates and News

07/19/2016: Crossfield et al. (2016) reports the discovery of a planetary system of four Earth-size planets around the M-dwarf star K2-72. Up to two of these planets might be in the habitable zone. However, there are known corrections with the published values. We are waiting for additional results on this system to update the Habitable Exoplanet Catalog with the latest data.

05/02/2016:Three new planets around TRAPPIST-1 were announced. They orbit outside the optimistic habitable zone and therefore not included in the list of potentially habitable worlds of HEC. However, the orbit of the third planet, 'd', is very uncertain and still might be inside the HZ.

March 2016

03/28/2016:The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC) was updated with K2-9 b. The main infographics now only include the top objects of interest (i.e. the conservative sample) since they were becoming very cluttered with all the planets in the catalog.

January 2016

01/08/2016:The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog was updated with Wolf 1061 c. Planets Kapteyn b and HD 40307g are now listed as unconfirmed based on new results. The catalog is now divided in a conservative and optimistic sample. Other parts of the website, such as the Data Section, will be updated in the following days.

December 2015

12/21/2015:The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog will be updated on the week of January 4-8, 2016 with the recently announced Wolf 1061 c and additional results.

04/02/2015: The planet EPIC 201912552 b discovered by Montet et al. (2015) was added to HEC. This planet is now the closest transiting planet to Earth (~110 light years) of the objects of interest listed in HEC. This makes the planet a prime target for further observations in search for atmospheric signatures. EPIC 201912552 b receives about the same insolation as Earth but it is a large world (~2.2 Earth radii) and probably a Mini-Neptune, but there are examples of dense planets with similar sizes (e.g. Mega-Earth). HEC was also update with the recent NASA kepler data release (Q1-Q17) and there are more candidates for potentially habitable worlds in this new dataset, a total of over 110 now.

March 2015

03/02/2015: HEC is being updated with minor fixes during this month. This includes new plots and visualizations.

01/06/2015:Six NASA Kepler planets were added to the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog. One is Kepler-296 e, already confirmed in 2014, after revised properties. Kepler-438 b, Kepler-440 b, Kepler-442 b, Kepler-442 b are new confirmed planets while KOI-4427 b is still unconfirmed. Kepler-438 b and Kepler-296 e are now two of the most Earth-like planets based on insolation and size alone.

December 2014

12/30/2014: A new plot of all the planets in the habitable zone was created. The plot shows the planets size against the parent star effective temperature and incident stellar flux.

12/05/2014: Today is the third anniversary of the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog. We added the planet candidate Gliese 3293 c, the farthest (~60 light years) known potentially habitable world with measured mass. We updated many plots and tables to be more user friendly with links to additional data. We also updated the definition of terran and superterran worlds to match recent results (i.e. planets with less than 1.5 radii are more likely to be rocky). There are many plans for next year.

November 2014

11/24/2014: There was a significant update on the NASA Kepler candidates impacting, among other things, the number of Earth-size planets in the habitable zone (now eight).

September 2014

09/02/2014:Gliese 667C e and f are now considered unconfirmed exoplanets after the work of Feroz & Hobson (2014) and Robertson & Mahadevan (2014). Therefore, the red-dwarf star Gliese 667C probably has just one potentially habitable world, Gliese 667C c, and not three as previously believed.

06/11/2014: The NASA Kepler project updated the number of Kepler candidates and confirmed planets from 3,845 to 4,254. There are now up to one hundred potentially habitable worlds in the Kepler candidates, 30 matching the conservative definition of a potentially habitable. Details of the new Kepler candidates are available in the Data and Stats sections.

12/23/2013: HEC was updated with recent Kepler data that includes a new 'nearby' candidate for an Earth-like world. A new batch from Kepler was also analyzed.

12/05/2013:Today is the second anniversary of the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog. We updated the ESI ranking of some exoplanets (not much change). We added new habitable zone plots to the Results section and started a new project to estimate the number of habitable worlds from our stellar neighborhood to the whole universe.

04/17/2013: HEC has now a new welcome page with a shorter link phl.upr.edu/hec.

04/01/2013: All the databases were updated with the latest exoplanets data.

March 2013

03/13/2013: HEC shows now the frequency, distance, and probability of Earth-like planets.

February 2013

02/26/2013: We are testing a new ESI scale. Although the original ESI is much better at evaluating similarity to Earth it depends on estimated/modelled parameters. The new scale is only based on observed values (size or mass, and stellar flux) so it is easier to use. The main difference between the two scales is that now potentially habitable exoplanets can go as low as 0.5, but in both scales Earth-like planets should have an ESI of over 0.8.

02/18/2013: The exoplanets HD 85512 b and Tau Ceti f do not longer meet the new habitable zone criteria to be considered potentially habitable worlds. The NASA Kepler candidates sample was also reduced by half. We also announced our SPHERE project, an effort to search for Earth-like exoplanets and exomoons using the NASA Kepler data.

03/03/2012: The new Kepler data release updated Kepler-22b with a smaller radius. It is now the second best potential habitable planet after Gliese 667Cc. This update is under review and it has more uncertainties than the other three planets.

02/29/2012: The NASA Kepler press release is available here. We took more time analyzing the Kepler data and our press release is now targeted for tomorrow March 1.

02/28/2012: HEC was updated with the Feb 2012 NASA Kepler candidates. Stats here and full data here. A press release discussing the update and additional analyses will be posted tonight. We are working on some visualizations.

02/27/2012: New NASA Kepler planet candidates will be available here soon (ArXiv Paper). HEC now identifies stars from the Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems (HabCat).

02/13/2012: New data for GJ 667Cc is now available in the DATA section. New metrics and a full database of confirmed exoplanets was also included.

02/07/2012: Added a new list of unconfirmed exoplanets that includes two potential habitable exoplanets: the famous Gliese 581 g, and Gliese 667C d, a possible second habitable planet in the Gliese 667ABC stellar system.

02/06/2012: Over 200 previously unclassify exoplanets are now classify in the Stats section. There are still 66 that we don't have enough stellar information to categorize them with respect to their habitable zone. The total number of predicted potential habitable exomoons increased from 27 to 30.

01/12/2012: Our initial HEC release on Dec 05, 2011 included 2 confirmed and 14 unconfirmed potential habitable exoplanets. Now we report 4 confirmed and 23 unconfirmed potential habitable exoplanets. We expect more after the data release of the new Kepler candidates from December 2011. This information will be updated on the results sections in the following days.

12/05/2011: The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC) is available now.Kepler-22 b (KOI-089) did not pass our initial habitability assessments to be included in the catalog as a potential habitable exoplanet. A more detailed analysis is in progress. Here are some scientists opinions on the habitability of Kepler-22 b.